Cameron Park CSD Eyes Annexation

The Cameron Park Community Services District (CPCSD) board of directors gave a nod to possibly annexing more properties into the district at its March 20 meeting.

Advocated by board member Shiva Frentzen, the board discussed setting up a committee to look at the district’s sphere of influence with the goal of incorporating other areas into the district to increase revenue.

Frentzen said back in 2011 a committee had looked into annexing additional properties. One member of that committee, Eric Driever, was present at Wednesday night’s board meeting. He said their intent was to clarify various boundaries, determine where the district’s boundaries were, and to decide if there was potential revenue from annexing additional areas. But he said their work didn’t go any further because, “We didn’t have the wherewithal to fight with LAFCO.”

However, Frentzen said that was no longer an issue because the areas in question were now included in CPCSD’s sphere of interest. Instead she proposed re-forming the committee to gather additional information on what areas might be open to annexation, the cost of the process, and what the potential gain would be in revenue. She also discussed hiring a consultant to help them gain public support in those areas they wanted to annex.

At one point, Board President Greg Stanton asked why communities would want to be annexed to the district. Frentzen responded that it wouldn’t cost them anything additional. Instead the taxes they were already paying would simply be reallocated from the county to a local entity, in this case CPCSD.

With little to lose, the board directed General manager Mary Cahill to research the previous membership of the committee and report her results at their next meeting.

The board also discussed approving contracts for legal services with three different legal firms to be followed by putting legal services out to bid within six months.

However, board member Vicky Neibauer wanted it done more quickly and advocated for the new contracts to be in place by September.

Stanton noted that Georgetown Divide Public Utility District (GDPUD) had recently released a RFP (request for proposal) for legal services and perhaps the district should look at their RFP and the results of their search.

However, resident Barbara Rogers said the district shouldn’t ”go anywhere near GDPUD. There is way too much controversy there.” She also complained about the general manager not contracting out legal services as she was requested to do so by the board last year.

Gelber and resident Bill Carey went on to ask if counsel even needed to attend the board meetings. Gelber suggested instead that counsel be contacted after meetings with any questions in order to save money.

Apparently agreeing with some of its critics, the board voted to have Cahill release a RFP for legal services and report back the results in September for the board’s review and approval.